Poet · British · 1835 – 1902 · 165 quotes
The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
Samuel Butler
Poet · British · 1835 – 1902
God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.
Let every man be true and every god a liar.
I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.
The want of money is the root of all evil.
Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.
There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.
Justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten?'
If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.
Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.
Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.
We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.
The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.
The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.
To die is but to leave off dying and do the thing once for all.
If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.
He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.
Opinions have vested interests just as men have.
Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbours, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them.
Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
Look before you leap for as you sow, ye are like to reap.
In law, nothing is certain but the expense.
Life is one long process of getting tired.
Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble of the world.
All truth is not to be told at all times.
Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.
In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.
To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.
Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether they are good or bad things.
Silence and tact may or may not be the same thing.
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.
Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.
People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
If I die prematurely I shall be saved from being bored to death at my own success.
My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.
Money is the last enemy that shall never be subdued. While there is flesh there is money or the want of money, but money is always on the brain so long as there is a brain in reasonable order.
Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.
It is tact that is golden, not silence.
Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.
Be virtuous and you will be vicious.
